


I can see the ground (I can't see you)

by blazeofglory



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drugs, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctors don't understand what's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can see the ground (I can't see you)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hometown" by Andy Burrows, which I recommend listening to while you read this.

The doctors don’t understand what’s wrong. 

He’s seen a dozen dermatologists that don’t understand, and at this point, it’s too expensive to see any more.

His chest is covered in marks, and sometimes they _burn._ Sometimes they _ache_ and he feels as if he’s being stabbed, but there’s never been a drop of blood.

Sometimes it feels as though there are literal holes in his body.

Eponine tells him he smokes too much weed and drinks too much wine, and it must be finally getting to him. (He’s always been a paranoid son of a bitch.) Grantaire wants to believe her, but it feels too _real._ He’s not sure he could imagine up a pain that strong, no matter what foreign substance was coursing through his veins.

The birthmarks aren’t the only odd thing.

He’s got this—this constant sense of déjà vu. There was one time he had stood in an alleyway he had never been in before, somewhere in the heart of Paris, and he had felt an _ache._ But this time, it wasn’t physical. It felt familiar, as if he should recognize where he was, as if he had been there before, as if something important had happened there… But there was nothing around. Just old, rundown buildings with odd stains on the rotting wood. The only thing filling the alley was trash.

(Come to think of it, he can’t even remember how he had gotten there.)

And there was more.

He got that feeling with _people_ sometimes. Sometimes, when he met someone new, they felt familiar in that same way that made him want to embrace them, but also made him want to weep. And he didn’t _understand._ He had never met them, he was sure—such faces as Joly and Bossuet’s wouldn’t be easily forgotten, he was sure. He had even felt it when he met Eponine, though he’d been drunk out of his mind at the time.

But the worst, the _worst_ pain, the most confusing incident to date… was when he met Enjolras. The marks had been aching all day, but when he had bumped into a man on the street, the pain had _exploded._ It was like he was being shot, like he was _dying_ and he couldn’t breathe and—and—and the next thing he knew, the pain had stopped. It was like it had never been there at all; like the holes in his chest had suddenly ben _filled._ Of course that man had been Enjolras, but of course he hadn’t known how significant he would become at that time. (But he had known that he was _beautiful_.)

The pain is still there, but it’s never hurt that much again.

And, though he always explains it away (too much weed, too much wine), he doesn’t fail to notice that it never hurts when Enjolras is there. 

But leaving him—god, leaving him _aches_. It’s weird, the whole thing is weird—Jehan tells him that this feeling with Enjolras is _love_ , but that’s ridiculous.

Through it all, he _deals._ He’s still a functioning human being, and he stops complaining when it hurts, and he doesn’t mention it to anyone again—but.

It gets worse.

Every time he thinks it couldn’t _possibly_ get worse, it does.

He wakes one morning, in his own bed, but he doesn’t know where he is. Everything seems foreign and confusing and he _doesn’t know where he is_ , and his clothes seem weird and everything looks odd, and then—and then he gets a text. The notification sound drags him out of whatever sort of panic he was headed towards, and everything seems fine again. He’s home, _he’s okay._

His chest hurts the rest of the day.

It happens again. He asks Joly and Bossuet where Musichetta is, and when they say they don’t know anyone by that name, he takes a second to think about it and—oh, yes, he doesn’t either. Where had that come from? (From all the beer, they tell him.)

Enjolras never wears red, but Grantaire privately thinks that he should. Somehow, he knows it would look right on him. That might not be the crazy talking, though; Enjolras would probably look good in any color.

One day, Enjolras is holding a flag in a clenched fist, and—he doesn’t know why, he doesn’t understand—but Grantaire begins to weep.

(Maybe he should have spent all his money on therapists and not doctors.)

Sometimes, nothing feels real. His friends feel like ghosts. He doesn’t feel _alive_ ; the only thing grounding him is the suffocating pain in his chest.

He’s losing his mind, he’s losing his mind—oh god, he’s losing his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so mean to Grantaire, but it's really convenient to pour all of my shitty feelings into this weird writing style. At least this one isn't written in second person?


End file.
